Uber Looks At $500M Investment In Freight Division, Report Says

Uber is said to be in talks with investors to take stake in its freight business and raise $500 million to boost it to a value of $4 billion, according to Bloomberg.

The company was mum about the issue thus far.

An Uber spokesperson said that while it was “not unusual for us to receive interest for investment in Uber Freight, we are not able to comment on rumors about these discussions,” according to Bloomberg.

Uber Freight, since its 2017 debut, has specialized in the connection of truck drivers with shipping companies, acting as a broker. The company, a standalone subsidiary of the ride-share giant, has competed with traditional shipping companies like DHL International. It is led by Lior Ron.

During the first quarter, Uber Freight’s revenue increased 57 percent to $199 million, with losses widening during that time by 121 percent, to $64 million.

Last September, the company launched a new headquarters for Uber Freight in Chicago and hired 2,000 people to work there. The company invested $200 million in a bid to “put down roots” in the city, adding to its team of hundreds of employees based in other cities like San Francisco and Amsterdam. The company also planned to launch another European arm of the business in Germany.

Since the pandemic, the company has boosted its services with enhanced tendering options where shippers can add more details on what they need for a load, improvements to invoicing and billing, and real-time predictions of where an order is at any point during the process.

The company has said it plans to watch how the pandemic is developing and modify its response as needed in the future.

Digital freight, as PYMNTS noted in February, has seen a tumultuous road through the pandemic as the virus disrupted supply chains globally, leading to slowing speeds and layoffs. But Uber has been expanding its freight presence for the past few years.